CHAPTER 11
Owen
I take a seat at my gate and immediately get to work on how I’m going to re-establish myself as a security professional so I can approach Mila like a real man.
I want to have money in my pocket, both a short term and a long term plan, and the ring I need to make her mine.
My mind is racing as I furiously try to put the pieces together in a way that can get us back together as soon as possible.
I look around and can’t help but notice that half the people at the gate are couples. They come for the honeymoon and go home happy. Well, I got something like the honeymoon experience but I am definitely not going home happy. As a matter of fact I’m not going home at all because I don’t have one right now. I’m just bouncing around from place to place.
Even planning out something where you know exactly what you want seems complicated. At least to me right now. My mind shifts and I wonder how this stalker could have put together such a plan for these past couple days.
Okay, maybe he intercepted my phone calls when I made plans. I did call ahead for both the boat and the chopper, but not by much. How could he get over to both those places and put his plan into action?
This couldn’t be some low level guy with an obsession. Could this be a syndicate? Is someone targeting her father for strictly political reasons? And if so then who knows how deep their pockets run and the levels they will sink to to get the outcome they’re after.
But what is it exactly that they are after? If they want to try and embarrass the president, which Mila is anything but an embarrassment, why wouldn’t they just out her to TMZ or some news organization? That would definitely get plenty of media attention and the questions that come along with it.
Why did they basically put a hit out on her?
Or were they after me?
But Pete said the guy had pictures of her at the place he rented. This just doesn’t add up.
I’ll think about it on the flight. I open up the second hand tablet I carry with me to check my bank account and to access other personal information.
I pull up the banking screen and login. Well I guess the case of this weird guy isn’t the only thing that doesn’t add up because I’m still sitting on a big fat zero balance.
I’m low on cash and will need to make a withdrawal as soon as I land. People don’t exactly rent on credit these days.
I open my carry on and whip out one of the burner phones I have with me. I tear away the plastic packaging and dial Frankie Four Finger’s number from memory.
Just after I hit send the airport gets buzzed by a group of fighter jets. Damn. I wasn’t ready for that. I saw the blue color, or the blur that was blue at least, and figure it must be the Blue Angels. Damn, they were loud and that was a low fly-by.
A second later I hear the phone pick up. “All set?” he says.
“All done. Looking for the eagle to land and still staring at the egg,” I say referring to the round zero in my bank account.
“Incoming,” he says. “Give it just a couple minutes.”
“Roger that,” I say.
I hear Frankie say something but he’s drowned out by those damn jets passing overhead again.
“What’s that?” I ask.
All I get back is a dial tone.
“Figures,” I say. I stand up and walk the phone to the men’s room and those damn planes fly over again. What the hell? How many of those jets are there?
I enter the bathroom where I run water over the burner phone in the sink and then throw it in the trash before returning to my seat.
About a minute later the planes fly by for a third time. Wait? Was that the third time of the fourth?
I look down at my watch. Wait a second. I heard the planes four times. There was three times about one minute a part. The Blue Angels are all about precision. They have to be. They fly wing to wing in formation for Pete’s sake.
Everything they do is calculated and practiced over and over and over until it becomes muscle memory. If they flew over three times, each a minute apart then how come I heard four flyovers?
By design Frankie never reveals his location. Why would he? Secrecy is one of the hallmarks of what we do. Not only that it protects him, me, and the client.
But there’s just no getting around the timing of those fly-overs.
And there’s just no getting around the fact that…he’s here.